Issue No 622

Clans and displacement in Somalia
 

Mass displacement is nothing new in Somalia. Since the collapse of the Somali state in the early 1990s, protracted armed conflict and increasingly devastating climate shocks have uprooted millions. Major flooding in southern Somalia is the latest displacement crisis to engulf the country. A million people have been displaced in just a few weeks, with 1.5 million affected nationwide. Displacement numbers in Somalia now top well over four million– and counting.
 
From the 1970s onwards, rural-to-urban migration in Somalia steadily increased, before the dramatic acceleration of the trend amid state collapse in the 1990s. Thousands fled from warring clans to major cities in a bid to access aid and protection. Today, the country's urban population is growing at roughly 4% year-on-year, driven in large part by the gruelling drought that has devastated Somalia's pastoralist communities. Despite reprieve from looming famine in early 2023, the former pastoralists remain displaced in the sprawling shantytowns of the outskirts of Somalia's major cities, particularly Baidoa and Mogadishu. Rapid urbanisation has placed increased strain on the cities' limited resources, perpetuating the marginalisation of communities and clans displaced from their homelands.
 
Competition over urban land has continued to rise as established clans in major cities attempt to fend off or exploit ever-growing IDP numbers. With no patron clan protection, clans perceived as 'minority,' including the Yibir, Tumal, and Midgan, are routinely subjected to harassment and exploitation. The Somali Bantu, a distinct ethnic group that emerged from riverine farming communities and enslaved peoples from East Africa, have long been relegated to second-class citizens without adequate support or resources in Kismaayo and elsewhere.
 
IDP exploitation often takes the form of humanitarian aid diversion, with access restricted and controlled by camp 'gatekeepers,' who pressure IDPs to surrender their cash or food aid by threatening eviction. In mid-September 2023, the European Union suspended funding to the World Food Programme after a UN investigation uncovered pervasive theft of aid intended for displaced communities. Landowners, local authorities, security forces, and even humanitarian workers were implicated in the report. With the IDP camps frequently hastily erected on private land, they are often razed as the land's value rises, displacing residents further.
 
Sustained discrimination and widespread unemployment have created an urban underclass of disheartened youth ripe for radicalisation and petty crime. Decades of urbanisation have transformed communities like the Somali Bantu from riverain-dwelling subsistence farmers or pastoralists to city-dwellers. Flooding damage to crops and livestock is likely to only accelerate this trend, even as cities like Beledweyne are partially submerged.
 
These displacement trends may take on another timbre, however, in 2024. If the promise of a one-person, one-vote (OPOV) electoral system can be realised, it could radically transform the dominance of the Hawiye in Mogadishu or the Ogaden in Kismaayo. The country's urban elite have routinely sought to portray IDPs as only temporarily displaced former pastoralists with little recourse to state funds or support. But many of these IDP communities will suddenly become the most significant voting bloc in their locales. The National Consultative Council (NCC) proposals may yet fail to be ratified by parliament, but they could potentially alter the historical political architecture of Somalia's towns and cities.

A nationwide census is another prerequisite to conducting an OPOV election. This too, will surely upend the current, unempirical 4.5 clan system. A full clan demographic census and survey, Somalia's last and only census was in 1973, will likely reveal that clans considered ‘minor’ are actually equal in size to the four 'major' clans.
 
Even if the NCC proposals do not come to fruition, reimagining Somalia's cities is long overdue. The impoverished underclass that comprise Mogadishu's youth gangs, the 'Ciyaal Weero,' need far more support from the country's elite, otherwise, spoilers and armed groups like Al-Shabaab will continue to feed off their disenfranchisement and displacement. Somalia's mass displacement is far more than a humanitarian issue; it is rooted in Somalia's sophisticated and layered clan dynamics.
 
However, better integrating IDP communities into cities cannot be the only solution. It is also important to differentiate the temporarily displaced and those who may have little desire or capacity to return to their clan homelands. For those who do wish to return, support could include providing livelihood assistance.
 
As the flood waters gradually recede in the coming months, the patchwork internally displaced person (IDP) camps across Somalia have been disrupted once again. With humanitarian aid in Somalia typically concentrated in the major urban centres due to perennial instability and access issues, the latest bout of flooding is sure to push thousands towards towns and cities where they can be supported. But the flooding of IDP camps in Baidoa and Beledweyne offers an opportunity to reimagine these spaces and how they interact with their host cities.